How and Why to Increase Weight Training

Here are a few signs that it might be time to increase the amount of weights or the amount of repetitions that you’re currently using in your weight training sessions.

-  If you feel like you’re not getting anywhere at all, or that your progress has levelled off.  This indicates that the muscles are accustomed to the amount they are lifting.

-  If the current amount of weight doesn’t feel like a challenge.  Your muscles need to be challenged and to be stressed because that’s how they will grow.  Strength training exercises will bring muscle fatigue in less than 15 reps.  If you find that it’s easy to carry on past this, it’s definitely time to pile on some more lbs.

-   If you’ve never increased the amount of weights, it’s time brother!  That initial series was just a starting point.  You’ve got to continue to progress in amount of weights lifted or you won’t progress in building muscle and strength.

Remember that resistance is critical because strength training is about building and maintaining a level, and then building and maintaining another higher level, and so on. 

How to Increase Your Weights

Set up your training goals over a period of 12weeks. Go slow, and pay attention to how your body is responding.

The concept should be to increase the amount you lift in a specific key exercise movement over the six weeks.   So it is important to identify for each body part that exercise movement that will be the hurdle.  Here is what I recommend: Chest – barbell bench press; Back – dumbbell row; Shoulders – military press; Thighs – Squats; Calves – calf raise; and Hamstrings – reverse leg-curls.

You will need to ‘keep score’ in the gym so you definitely need to come to the gym with a pre-routine and as you perform the exercises you need to score the amount of weight you used! Trust me, you will love looking back at your ‘scores’ weeks later with lots of pride at you much you have improved.

You should work in blocks of 4 weeks; and will do 3 of these blocks; totalling 12 weeks to big gains!

In each 4 weeks block – Weeks 1, you should do reps of 12; Weeks 2, reps of 9; Weeks 3, reps of 6; and Weeks 4, reps of 3.  In Weeks 1 and 2, on the last set of each exercise, do one ‘pause and rest’ set.  And in Weeks 3 and 4, on the last set of each exercise do a ‘drop’ set.  A ‘rest and pause’ set is rest 15 to 20 seconds after the last set, and repeat the set to fatigue.  A ‘drop’ set is where you immediately do another set but reduced weight (20% to 30%) to fatigue.

So you will be increasing the weight on exercises from Week 1 through to Week 4; and of course increasing the weight of the exercises from Block 1 through to Block 3.  That is why you need to keep score in gym!

Increase the weights very carefully and don’t overdo it. You want to improve and not get injured 

Your goal is to fatigue muscles.  You’ll be doing this through the added weight which will make those muscles work harder and become accustomed to harder loads.  The ‘rest & pause and ‘drop’ sets will fool or shock your body to accepting more loads. Always focus on good form! Taking a set to fatigue means you almost cannot do the last rep.  NEVER GO BEYOND THAT – IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.  

HIT It. Then HIIT it Again

What is HIT, why do you want it and how can you add it into your fitness regime?

High Intensity Training (HIT) or high intensity interval training (HIIT) has been around since the invention of the Nautilus machine.  Runners have always used speed work or interval training routines to build up power and improve their times.  But it’s making a big comeback these days.  HIIT is about strength training, fitness and weight loss.  

In HIT training, exercises are intense and brief.  This works to stimulate strength.  I think it’s the best way to workout, much better than using low amounts of weight but with a lot of reps, or doing long slow cardio routines.

Basically, high-intensity interval training can be just about anything that alternates intense bursts of activity with short periods of mild activity and performed in a short period of time (Maximum 20 to 25 minutes).  So, you could power run for one full minute and then walk for the next two minutes.  If you repeat this five times, you have done a 15 minute set that is a really great HIT workout.

There are a lot of benefits to HIT or HIIT

 

·        It’s efficient.  This workout is super-efficient.  Even just 15 minutes of HIT training three to four times a week is better than jogging for three hour-long sessions.  It’s the perfect workout for busy people, which is pretty much everyone.  It can be fit into the nooks and crannies of your day.  It can be used to get into shape fast. 

·       Builds stamina.  A study from 2011 found that 2 weeks of HIT training boosts aerobic capacity as much as 2 months of endurance workouts would. 

·         It’s great cardio.  Extreme training makes the heart work really hard, and that’s one more muscle that will get stronger.  HIT workouts push you into the anaerobic zone where it’s hard to breathe and your heart is pounding.  That’s good for us!

·        You can lose weight while building muscle.  This workout burns calories and fat throughout the workout and then sends the body into a kind of repair hyper-drive for the next 24 hours; burning calories long after the workout!.

·     HIT increases metabolism.  Human Growth Hormone or HGH is thought to rise by several hundreds of percent and stay there for the 24 hours after your workout. Is that not what we are all looking for!

·     No special equipment is needed.  Actually, nothing at all is needed.  You can do this kind of training anywhere, no matter the amount of space or equipment available.  You might have to get a bit creative, but hey, that’s part of the challenge.  Now there’s never an excuse for missing a workout. 

·       It’s challenging.  Who wants to keep with the same old boring workouts?

Incorporating high intensity interval training into a fitness regime is not hard at all.  You get to pick and choose, and change your activities up.  No two workouts need to ever be the same again, if you don’t want them to be.  Try bursts of fast running, hard cycling, jumping rope, rowing, jumping lunges, use weights, etc.  Just get moving hard, then move slowly, then repeat the whole cycle.

 

It is best the make sure that you work out your total body in a HIT session.  Of course full body movements are the best, such as burpees or squat shoulder presses.  But it is OK to incorporate this into your running, or cycling program.  Or mix one upper body with one lower body movement. Rest and recover are an important part of HIT.  You will need it to get your heart right back up there again.  It’s okay to catch your breath in-between intense bursts, but don’t let yourself get to full recovery before starting the next set.

If you are new HIT, take longer rest pause periods; and gradually reduced these as you improve.  Be patient.

It is very important to warm up properly before you commence your HIT workout.  This warm up must include thoroughly loosening up all your muscles as well as gradually getting your heart rate up.  The real HIT portion of your workout should be between 15 and 25 minutes, maximum!  And that includes all the pause and breath periods between intervals.   Also cool down for 6 to 8 minutes after the HIT portion.  This is important as it will flush out the high level of lactic acid built up in your muscles.  Then stretch!

 

Like with any other workout, make sure you have a day of rest before you do it again.